Let’s be honest, cancelling Facebook is something i should have done by at least their third privacy breach. More so after it came out that they had experimented on us by manipulating the newsfeed to see if they could manipulate our emotions.
But like you, i didn’t. I kept using it, because i didn’t want to let friends and family down. I didn’t want to seem snobbish. I kept reading all the posts to see if anyone would mention me, or better, ask me to hang out. But instead of drawing us closer, the more we knew about each other, the less close i felt towards you.
In fact, i started counting to see how many of my post you emojied or commented on, to decide how and when I’d comment or emoji you back, even though i had no interest or connection to your current hobbies.
I only joined Facebook back in 2009, because of a couple at a former church who kept bugging me, then i bugged everyone i knew until they joined.
I had 1500 “friends” back then, some of them strangers with a similar hobby i enjoyed commenting with.
Leaving Facebook, i had 54 “Friends”. Over the years i got tired of being connected, only via Facebook, friendships that only continued because of Facebook.
We had no intention of seeing each other if they ever returned to the area to visit.
Facebook taught me a valuable lesson though, and that is how to prioritize relationships. I grew up trying to please everyone, i wanted friends, but as i grew, i realized, that just like on Facebook, they’re also acquaintances. I also learned that those who i always had thought were my best friends and felt mutually about me, actually had their own best friends and i wasn’t on top. Their best friends that they liked better, had their own best friends too.
Facebook also forced me to learn about boundaries. I hadn’t previously had any boundaries. It wasn’t until i saw my best friends posting photos doing things with other people, that I’d asked them to do with me, that i realized i was giving them everything i had to offer, always available to them, did what they wanted to do, just to be able to be with them, it wasn’t mutual.
So i grew to hate what Facebook did to my reality. It exposed the things that i had known, but refused to believe were true.
It revealed the lies some “best friends”, had been telling me for years, to get what they wanted from me, when they’re best friends were unavailable. You’d think that would be enough, but i remained.
Then one day, i came across a woman on a Facebook page who posted something i enjoyed, but had never found anyone before who also enjoyed it. So i sent her an Unsolicited messenger text telling her i thought it was cool.
Before i knew what happened, she messengered me back. Within a week she messengered me her phone number. It was exciting, but awkward. I had been thinking about asking it from her, but thought it might be to forward or pushy.
So i gave her my number too, and i called. Within two months, without ever meeting me, though talking everyday from the time she got off work until she went to bed, she said words I’d always wanted to hear. She said, “I’ve fallen in love with you. “
I said, “What?”. She repeated, “I am falling in love with you. ” To which i responded, “How is that even possible, you haven’t even met me in person.” She didn’t care.
So we met half way between where we lived, which would be Universal Studios for a first date. A blind date, my first and only blind date.
We sat and talked and the chemistry was powerful like magic. I took her hand and held it as i looked into her eyes as we talked. Her lips were amazingly perfect.
We then had dinner, and when she were leaving, we shared the most incredible kiss I’d ever have, more memorable than my first kiss from my first girlfriend in high school. I’ll never forget that kiss, at least unless i one day receive a better one. I’m sceptical if that’s possible.
I was in film school at the time, and also working on numerous productions. That’s when she began to show signs of obsession and control. Film school isn’t like other programs, you have to meet deadlines. You have to be seated in class 15 minutes before the instructor or you got locked out. I had classes during the day and night, then we would film after class to 3 or 5 AM.
So she started to complain, but i was committed to school. She could be replaced, i couldn’t start film school over again. I’d chosen women over careers and education and personal passions before, and i always regretted it. Always! Not this time. I made a 100 percent commitment before she came along.
A few weeks later, she broke up with me. Then again a few months later. Then again.
For some stupid reason, probably because i committed myself not to have sex until marriage, old school. We started to talk about Marriage. We even went to premarital counseling for serveral months with a pastor.
It was then, that like on Facebook, what seemed real, turned out to be a lie.
Two months earlier, she had revealed that she had been married before. Not once, but twice. And when i asked her how she contributed to the failing of those marriages, she said she’d thought over and over about it, but couldn’t figure it out.
She left the first guy. The second guy left her. I only knew that statistically I’d be number three if married her. I didn’t want to be number three, that began endlessly bugging me. I’ve never been married before, I’d been engaged a few times, but never married. I had no idea what it would be like. But i knew she already had expectations that her first two husbands didn’t survive.
I’ve known a lot of divorced people, and I’ve learned one thing for sure. If you don’t know what happened, you were a big part of it failing.
By that time, like with Facebook, i was already hooked on her. My biggest mistake was breaking the secret man rule by finally telling her i loved her too. That’s always been the breaking moment in the past, and it was no different this time either. But like with Facebook, I’d find out yet again that things were not what it seemed.
She told me she wasn’t even fully divorced yet. He was already years into a relationship with another woman, but she kept leaving one thing on the divorce papers unchecked or not signing it each time she submitted it. She’d been doing it for three years. Good thing we didn’t have sex, I’d have hated sleeping with a married woman even if her marriage at the time was more of an unfinished technicality. It’s just not something I’d want anyone to do to me, even if it was just a technicality.
She’d been lying to me, just like she had been lying to her 21 year old daughter about my and her relationship. We were going to premarital counseling and she told her daughter it was a bible study with pastors.
I didn’t know she had been lying to her daughter or me until near the end. Liars are on the very bottom of LIKE list. I’d have quickly become former husband number 3, if i hadn’t discovered she was a major liar until after marriage.
She began pulling away. If i opened my schedule on a specific day by changing my class schedule, she’d suddenly not be available on that day.
So i started paying closer attention, just like i had began to do with “friends” on Facebook, and after two months she slipped up on her lies.
So i asked her, and she denied it. But i had dates and times memorized of things that conflicted with what she originally said, compared to what she were now saying.
Don’t lie to a filmmaker, were trained to observe continuity issues!
A week later she broke up with me again. But like with Facebook, where i first connected with her, it was clear that this wasn’t healthy. A month later her divorce finally went through, and three months later she had a photo of herself with a new man. The man she’d apparently been seeing, when she wasn’t available to see me.
That was interesting, because it made me question my appearance. I didn’t think he was a good looking man, but she found me attractive. So you see where I’m going?
Unlike with her, its taken years to realize, that Facebook is her. Facebook is her in the sense its been lying, manipulating, and more recently acting just like her, by “fact checking” everything i wrote that it didn’t approve of. Then it added a notice to my posts with out providing any genuine sources of evidence to back up its claims.
But we knew it was happening, and we refused to do anything about it. So like her, Facebook began censoring us, and politicians they didn’t like. They forced their social justice agendas on us, “Climate Awareness”, “Black Lives Matter”, “Politics”, etc.
I didn’t join Facebook to be censored, preached to, manipulated, be tracked everywhere online, to have my privacy sold to the highest bidder.
Nope, that is what happened in the movie the Matrix. Where people became the product and resource harvested by the machines who controlled their minds.
I’d seen enough, but i stayed because my friend and family are sheep just like i was.
Stupid sheep knowing what is coming, knowing what’s been done to them, but like a Sheep walking towards the slaughter house, they ignore it, just like i did.
Until today.
Today, i said goodbye. I didn’t deactivate like in the past, just in case. I didn’t need a vacation. Like with her, i need a clean break. The price being to high.
If i managed to break free of smoking as a teenager, drinking as an adult, and eventually walking away from her without looking back. I can make a clean break from Facebook too, just like i did earlier this year with Twitter.
So i deleted my Facebook account. They of course tempted me by saying they’ll give me 30 days until its final just in case. But no.
I gave everyone my contact information, and those who wanted to, gave me theirs. I said my goodbyes. I deleted my Facebook Pages and transferred administration of the ones that needed to continue to other people.
I made sure everyone knew i was leaving sometime within the next two weeks. Then when i had tied up everything i needed to, i decided there really wasn’t any reason to delay. Like ripping off a band aid stuck to my hair, i shutdown my account, before anyone realized.
Like how i feel about her, i don’t regret it. But like her, i also knew in my heart that it was no longer healthy. My boundaries had been crossed for the last time. I’d been pimped, one two many times. It no longer benefits me. It’s become all about Facebook. They had me fooled, just like she did, believing it was all about me. But like her, they’re lousy liars, and they don’t even care enough to try and hide it.
So i joined WeMe, and to commit myself, i gave a donation. I also signed up for a page which costs $2 a month, to replace my three Facebook Pages. I committed myself to go the MeWe path for a year. It’s a cheap price for keeping my personal information from being sold to advertisers everyday and night. MeWe is the first social media or website ive ever paid real money to, to participate in. It’s an amazing value, but the sheep are dumb. They eat anywhere and anything that’s “free”, without looking at the Sheppard sharpening his Cutlery.
It’s a cheap price for the value to have privacy. It’s a cheap price to not be censored, have a corporation shove political ideologies down my throat. To be able to say what i want, even if later discover i was wrong. Sure, for now my sheep, i mean “friends”, are still on Facebook and i won’t encourage them to move. Going forward, if i have friends on MeWe, they’ll be ones who followed me, not ones i had to beg to get attention from. Not the ones who told me, “i don’t like swimming”, but then posts photos of themselves in their pool swimming with other people i know having fun swimming.
I’m done with that. Don’t be a sheep.
